


shadow demon

by skuls



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Sort Of, s11 spec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-26 23:37:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12568740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: Mulder and Scully find themselves wrapped up in an unexpected case at a Halloween carnival when a teenage boy asks for their help.





	1. part one: october 30, 2017

**Author's Note:**

> s11 spec. based off a prompt by @firstofoctober.
> 
> happy halloween!

Another hotel room, another state. Wyoming is surprisingly chilly for October, and Scully has bought bulk in jackets for Mulder that she will inevitably steal. The suitcases they bought in a Walmart in Tennessee still have the tags on them, and they have black zip-up bags full of rolls of cash in the glove compartment. They keep their guns on their waist and their car keys in their pockets. They've lived like this before, except for one notable difference: before, they were running away from their son (running away from his memory). Now, they're running to him. If they can find him.

They didn't tell Skinner where they were going. They needed his help, but they didn't trust him. Don't trust him. They don't know who they can trust anymore. A night with bullets flying through their living room, guns to their heads and cold metal around their wrists as they were shuffled out to a car together, chains clinking between them. The close escape, the stumbling run into the woods. Deciding to disappear as she picked the lock with a piece of wire while Mulder rubbed her thumb with his. Meeting Skinner in the parking garage. They lied, told him they went to Massachusetts. They've been heading west. They're looking for their son.

Scully is sitting on one of the beds of the hotel room, trying to hack into public records without setting off about a million alerts to their location. They've barely made any progress on searching for William because of their fear of being caught. The new Syndicate seems to be more tech-savvy than the old one ever was; they found them last time because of a search on fucking Google. Langly taught them how to set up a private, untraceable connection. (Years in a bunker had taught him a lot of new tricks.) Mulder's running out to pick up dinner, and she's trying her best to distract herself until she gets back so she doesn't panic, doesn't think too much about what could be happening. Her fingers click-clack over the keyboard, the blue of the screen lighting up her face, and she's so concentrated in what she's doing that she doesn't hear the pounding footsteps outside until the door bursts open.

She jumps, eyes widening as a lanky kid bursts into the room, Mulder on his tail. “Mulder, what's…” she starts, uncertain.

“It's a long story,” Mulder says. His hand is on the shoulder of the boy and he nudges him towards the bed gently. The kid is trembling, so pale that Scully can count all of his freckles. “This is Dr. Scully,” Mulder tells him. “She's my… my partner.”

The kid nods, seemingly distracted, hands balled up in his jacket pockets.

“This is Jackson,” Mulder says evenly. “He's, um, he saw something.”

Scully blinks. “Saw something?”

“It was the carnival,” the kid croaks. “There's something evil in there, I swear. I saw it. I barely escaped.”

Scully reaches out and feels his forehead with the back of her wrist. He's freezing, covered in a cold sweat. “I'm going to get you some water, okay, sweetie?”

Mulder squeezes his shoulder again. “Stay here, we'll be right back.” The kid, Jackson, nods, staring at his knees. Mulder follows her into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

“Mulder, what… who is that? What's going on?” Scully hisses, taking a paper cup from the counter and filling it with water.

Mulder gulps, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was at a convenience store, putting groceries in the trunk of the car,” he says. “And this kid comes running out of the woods, looking scared out of his wits. He was _sprinting_ , Scully, he had a baseball bat in his hand, he almost brained me with it when I stopped him. He said something was chasing him, he said it took his friend. He flipped out when I offered to take him home or to the police station, said it wouldn't help anything. He said his parents weren't even home in the first place, and whatever it was would come for him if he was alone. I couldn't just leave him there, Scully.”

“Where the hell did he come from?”

“He said he was at a carnival or something.”

Scully chews her lower lip nervously. “It's good that you helped him, but, Mulder, we can't do this right now. I think we need to take him to the police if someone's gone missing…”

“We can't,” Mulder says. “They'll never believe him, what he saw. Besides that, it's a teenage boy and everyone always likes to say they've run away.”

“That doesn't matter. If there's been a disappearance, the police need to be notified. Besides we're supposed to be low profile, and we don't even know if he's telling the truth!”

He motions frantically for her to speak quieter. “He's telling the truth, Scully. I saw… it.”

She’s strangling the paper cup a little in her fist; she sets it down, sitting down on the edge of the tub. Her head hurts a little at the prospect of another X-File; after the doppelgangers in Idaho and that case with the fucking statues, she'd hoped their bad luck had run out. “What is… it?” she asks wearily.

“It's a demon.”

Mulder turns away from her, revealing the kid standing in the doorway. Jackson. His face is flushed, dark hair hanging in his face. “Or… something,” he adds. “I'm not sure what, exactly, but it… it followed me. It took Danny and it followed me.”

Scully swallows. “Danny’s your… friend?”

Jackson nods solemnly.

“Here, let's talk out there.” Mulder motions Jackson out of the room, hand on his shoulder. Scully follows quietly. Jackson sits on one of the beds and they sit across from him on the other one. “Tell Scully what you told me,” Mulder says encouragingly, squeezing her knee. “She may seem skeptical, but she comes around most of the time.”

Scully might’ve slugged him if it weren't for the circumstances, the nervous kid shifting on the bed across from them. He rubs the back of his neck nervously, says, “Okay.” He gulps, chews his lower lip. “Okay, um. Danny and I went to this traveling carnival thing. They're new in town and all, right? Mom and Dad are out of town and I was staying-- _am_ staying--alone, so I figured, you know…” He shrugs. “Thought it'd be fun. So we went, and we hung out, and we went through this haunted house thing. And that's where it was.”

He's quiet, knee bouncing frantically. Mulder squeezes her knee again. “What's it, Jackson?”

“I dunno, I don't…” The kid is shaking his head. “We went into this room, this really dark room. We couldn't see anything, no one jumped out at us. We were just kind of walking through this room when we heard laughter, this awful hysterical laughter. Not cheesy movie laughter. Danny had kind of been making fun of the whole thing, making snarky comments the whole time. So he yells, he yells, um, ‘Where the hell’s the scare?’ or something like that. And the laughter stopped. The laughter stopped, and uh, I felt this scratch on my leg.”

Jackson leans down and motions to his leg. Scully looks, too, and sees a long scratch along his leg, right through his jeans, coated in dried blood. “Oh my god,” she says, horrified. “You need to get that looked at.”

Jackson waves his hand impatiently. “It's not a big deal. _Danny_ is the one in trouble. He's the one they took. I was trying to figure out what had scratched me and he made this awful gaspy sound, almost like… almost like he didn't have time to scream. I just, I looked up and he was gone.” He gulps. “Just _gone_. And I have no idea where… no idea what… I yelled his name, I whirled around looking for him, but I couldn't find him. I couldn't see the exit but I could see the entrance, I tried to run away but I couldn't, someone grabbed my ankle and yanked me to the ground. The door slammed shut. And then I heard the growling… I felt this awful, cold feeling, and something's hot breath on my face... I screamed and screamed, but no one listened. Everyone's fucking screaming in a haunted house.” The kid shudders. “I thought I was a goner until someone opened the door. The thing was gone, just like that. I don't even know how it happened. I got up and ran out, and I told the attendants that Danny was gone, and they helped me look for him, but he was gone, too. They thought he was playing a prank on me, they didn't believe me. But I stuck around to try and look for Danny. I looked through the entire carnival, but I couldn't find him. And that's when I saw it watching me… watching me from the shadows.” He chews his lower lip, picking at a thread in his jeans. “That's when I ran.”

Scully gulps, looking at the long wound along Jackson’s leg. Something definitely scratched him there, got him good. She can't say what it is. But she can tell that the kid isn't faking; the tremor in his voice, the haunted look in his eyes speak volumes. She's seen that look on Mulder's face again and again through the years. She addresses Mulder: “And this is what he told you?”

Mulder nods solemnly.

“He said you were FBI,” Jackson says suddenly, eagerly. “FBI agents who work on paranormal cases. He said you could help.”

Scully bites her lower lip, considers. _He might be lying,_ her rational side reminds her. And he very well might be. But she isn't getting that vibe from him. He's clearly distraught, clearly hurt, and if he's telling the truth, then another child is missing. In danger. Mulder says he saw something, and whatever he saw (a human killer or… otherwise), it could be pursuing this kid. She can't just leave him alone.

“Yes,” she says, even though the words feel clunky in her mouth. “We can help.”

\---

There is some friction at first. Scully insists that they need to notify, if not the police, at least Danny’s parents. Jackson insists that they can't. “Danny’s parents are out of town, too, they're best friends with my parents and they all rented a cabin together… they left Danny and me alone to, like, test our responsibility or whatever,” he says, flapping his hand dismissively. “And you can't tell them; if you tell them, they'll _freak out._ It's better if we can find him without them ever having to know.”

“They're his _parents_ ,” Scully says insistently. The thought at the back of her mind is her son--her son, who would be about the same age as Jackson. Her son, who she'd hate to think about being pursued by a monster or murderer or whatever without her knowing. She wishes she knew he was safe--she wants to give these parents that advantage. “They need to know that their son isn't safe, and so do yours.” She thinks the police need to be involved, too, but selfishly, she wants to keep this under the radar, at least until they know how serious it is, how much danger this child is in. For their sake, for William's. “I'm fine with leaving the police out of it for now, but your parents need to know.”

Jackson looks from her to Mulder eagerly, like he hopes Mulder will be on his side. To Scully's astonishment, Mulder is nodding in agreement. “She's right, kid,” he says gravely, and she wonders if he's thinking of Samantha. Or William.

Jackson looks nervously between them before sighing. “All right.” He pulls a cell phone out of his pocket. “But let me call them, they'll freak out if a stranger is calling from my phone.”

Scully nods her assent. “I want to talk to them, though. And as soon as you finish calling them, you need to let me clean up your leg, check it for infection.”

Jackson nods, standing. “I'm going to take it outside,” he says, grabbing the baseball bat. “So you guys can, like… figure out a game plan or whatever.”

“Be careful out there,” Mulder says quickly. “Stay close to the room, and we'll be right inside if you need us.”

Jackson looks at the guns on their waist, nods. The door creaks horribly when he exits the room, the bat thumping against the door frame.

As soon as he's gone, Scully turns to Mulder. “Tell me exactly what you saw,” she says quietly.

Mulder nods, catching her hand against his chest. “It was right after I stopped him. He was explaining, practically babbling, and I looked over his shoulder and I saw a… a clown in the woods.”

“A clown?” He nods seriously. “I knew seeing _It_ was a mistake,” she says dryly.

“Well, he wasn't in the sewer and he didn't offer me a balloon, but it was definitely a clown. In the trees, right where Jackson came out. Staring right at me.”

Scully considers. “That puts the possibility of a human perpetrator into the mix,” she says. “If it was a clown… they were in a haunted house, he could've used the advantage of darkness and sound effects, he could've cut Jackson and abducted Danny…”

Mulder is smirking at her. He pats her hand as if comforting her. “Nice try, Scully, but your theory doesn't fit with how quickly Danny disappeared, the fact that Jackson saw nothing. Or the fact that I saw the clown disappear.”

“What? You saw him disappear into thin air?”

“Not exactly,” Mulder says, hesitating. “He was… he sort of melted into the shadows.”

Scully blinks at him. “He melted into the shadows,” she repeats in a deadpan.

“Exactly.”

“He couldn't have just… stepped into the shadows and used the advantage of darkness to hide.”

“No, definitely not. I'm telling you, Scully, I saw him, he saw me, he smiled at me, and then he melted into the shadows. It was like he became _part_ of them.”

“That's impossible, Mulder.”

“Not if it was a demon, like Jackson said. A demon could take on different forms like that. A shadow demon, maybe…”

Scully suddenly remembers the teenager on the other side of the door. “Jackson,” she says, dismayed, letting her breath out with a whoosh. “What are we going to do with him? We can't leave him alone, but we can't take him with us while we look for his friend… I don't even know where to start looking for his friend, Mulder. What do we do here? It'd be better if we could call the police…”

“You know we can't do that, Scully.” He slides his fingers through hers and squeezes. “As soon as we make that phone call, or use our badges, the Syndicate will catch up with it. Cancer Man will find us, him and his new little lackeys. And we can't just turn him over to the police because they'll never believe him.”

“They will if it's a human kidnapper,” Scully says stubbornly.

“You know it's not a human kidnapper, Scully.”

“I know nothing of the sort.”

“You're in denial, Scully. Jackson and I both have proof that it was something supernatural, eyewitness accounts.”

Scully sighs, lifting her hand to her temple. “Okay. Fine. Whatever. But what do you want to do now, Mulder? What do you want to do now?”

“Why don't we sleep on it? It's late, and we'd probably get busted for breaking and entering if we went to the carnival this late. And the kid needs some rest, Scully, he's running on pure adrenaline right now.”

She sighs again, takes her hand out of his. “You're right,” she says. “Do you want to just stay here? He could have the other bed.”

“Seems like the best idea. We can't leave him alone, not with a demon after him.”

A thought occurs to her, a particularly unwelcome one. “Mulder,” she whispers, stepping closer. “If you really think a… demon or a monster is pursuing Jackson… how can we protect him? Or ourselves, for that matter? How can we fight something like that off?”

Taken aback, Mulder pauses, chews his lower lip nervously. He opens his mouth to answer.

The door creaks open, and they turn to find Jackson standing in the door, cell phone in one hand and baseball bat in the other, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. “They want to talk to you,” he says, shoving the phone towards Mulder.

“What did they say?” Scully asks.

“They freaked out,” he says. “Just like I said. They want to come back right away, but they're in Colorado so it’ll take a while… especially because of the snow, it snowed the other night… Mom calmed down a little when I told her you were FBI agents, but she wants to talk to you.”

Mulder takes the phone, uncertainly. Jackson is still bouncing, eyes too big for his face, long cut down his leg looking worse in the moonlight coming in through the door. “Why don't you let me take a look at your cut while they talk, sweetie?” Scully offers.

Jackson nods again, in agreement, and comes into the room, closing the door behind him. “Oh, and I didn't see the thing, Mulder,” he says. “The… shadow demon thingy. I haven't seen it since the woods. That's good, right?”

“That's great, kid,” Mulder says, audible relief in his voice. He raises the phone to his ear and says, “Hello? Ma'am?”

Scully leans Jackson into the bathroom. “Can you roll up your pants leg a little bit, sweetie?” she asks. “I'm a doctor, I know what I'm doing.”

Jackson props his leg up on the toilet. On the other side of the wall, she can hear Mulder giving his name and badge number. God, she hates this; if Skinner really is working with the Syndicate, if they catch up with them, they may never find William. Or the Syndicate will find him first. She hates this. She knows it's important, knows they can't leave another child alone, in danger, but she hates this. She wants to keep looking for their son.

She wets a cloth under the faucet and hands it to Jackson. “Here, try to wipe the blood off,” she says, grabbing for the black bag of medical supplies she insisted on bringing.

“No, no, Jackson is fine, Mrs. Van de Kamp,” Mulder says outside. “Danny… We're not sure what happened to Danny. We only know what Jackson has told us.”

“I felt awful,” Jackson says, passing the cloth back to her. She rinses it in the sink and drapes it over the side of the counter. He’s chewing his lip nervously, drumming his fingers on the counter. “Having to tell Danny’s parents… it was awful.”

“Jackson told you… yes, we're here on… vacation, and I ran into him. I wanted to help… I felt like it was my duty,” Mulder is saying.

“I know the feeling,” Scully says. “In our line of work, you have to give people bad news a lot. Here, sweetie, put some of this on the cut.” She passes him the Neosporin.

“I can assure you we are trained for this, and will do everything in our power to protect Jackson and find Danny,” Mulder says, and she hears the thud of him leaning heavily against the wall. “We just want to help him.”

Jackson's shoulders are stiff. “They thought I was lying at first,” he says to the rug on the bathroom floor. “About the thing. I had to swear a thousand times that it wasn't a prank. I still don't think they believe me, that a demon took Danny… they're just panicked he's missing.”

“It's up to you, whatever decision you want to make, but if you're really stuck up there, my partner and I would be glad to protect Jackson and search for Danny until you get back,” says Mulder.

Scully pulls a roll of bandages from the bag. “I'm just gonna bandage your leg, okay, Jackson?” Jackson nods. She crouches on the floor beside him and begins to wind the bandages along the cut. “You and Mulder would have a lot to talk about,” she says. “He has a long history of not being believed.”

“You guys investigate, like, ghosts and shit, right?”

“Something to that degree, yes.”

Jackson snorts. “I'm not surprised, then. I mean… _I_ would've thought this entire thing was batshit a few days ago. I never would've known… until I felt it. I've never felt that before.” He gulps. “Even if my parents don't believe me… you believe me, right?”

Scully swallows, cutting off the end of the bandages. “Yes,” she says, getting to her feet. She doesn’t know if she’s lying to be reassuring or not. “Yes, of course we do.”

Mulder appears in the doorway, holding out the phone. “Jackson? They want to talk to you again.”

Jackson nods, headed towards the door. “Thanks, Scully,” he says, taking the phone.

“Of course,” Scully says, nodding. It feels strange to have a child call her Scully, but then again, that’s probably what Mulder called her the whole way back to the hotel.

Jackson steps outside of the room to take the call. “They're suspicious, understandably,” Mulder tells Scully. “And frantic. But they didn't see any other choice. I think the FBI thing comforted them. They said they're gonna try and leave the mountains tonight. They want us to protect him in the meantime, keep an eye on him. I said he could stay here, and they didn't seem to think there was any other choice. He doesn't have any family in the area or anyone to stay with.”

“Okay.” Scully licks her lips. “Okay, so. They know who we are? Our real identities?” She knows that they do, Mulder wouldn’t have given out his badge number if they didn’t.

“Yeah.” He swallows, shoulders hunched up sheepishly. “I'm sorry, Scully. But it seemed like the best option to protect the kid.”

There are things she wants to say--maybe protests, maybe an agreement, maybe just an acknowledgement. But Jackson appears in the door before she can. “Got cut off,” he says. “Bad signal. But Mom says to tell you guys that they're on their way.”

“That's good,” Scully offers.

“Yeah, um. So I guess I'm staying here tonight?”

“Yep,” Mulder says, in a thickly false-cheerful tone. “Guess so.”

\---

Scully sends the kid on to bed after he gets off the phone. (It feels bizarre to be doing this with a stranger. Mulder can't help but wish that it was their son they were spending time with. A look at Scully's laptop reminds him that they are going to find him.) Jackson protests vehemently, wants to go looking for Danny right away, but he immediately conks out when he climbs into bed. Mulder recognizes that kind of furious adrenaline turned to exhaustion. They'll find his friend in the morning, he hopes. If he's not already dead.

He and Scully crawl into the other bed, somewhat awkwardly, actively aware of the other presence in the room. They haven't shared a hotel room with anyone else that they can remember, and it's uncomfortable as hell. Haven't shared a room in general with anyone besides the dog and their newborn son. But Scully must be exhausted, too, because she falls asleep almost instantly, too.

Mulder can't sleep. He tosses and turns for hours, the breaths of a stranger unnerving. He gets up for a drink only to find the ice bucket full of liquid, pulls on his/Scully's jacket and leaves the room in search of ice. The breezeway is empty, save for a paper skeleton fluttering from one of the railings. He walks through the chilly air to the vending machines, fills up the ice and heads back. He is not thinking about demons when he hears it: a sharp scraping sound.

At first, Mulder can't find the origin of the sound. He looks right and left and in front and behind him. He'd be halfway convinced he imagined it if it weren't for the repeat of the sound, a long, drawn-out scrape, metal against metal. It seems to be coming above him. He looks up and hears it again, on the other side of the roof of the breezeway.

Heart pounding, Mulder steps off of the breezeway, onto the lawn, and looks up onto the roof. A girl is crouched there, dressed in a torn white dress and sharpening a knife. A sharp _shreet_ sound, then another. _Shreet_. _Shreet_. Mulder almost can't breathe, is too captivated to look away. The girl, bending over her knife, seems to sense someone watching her. Looks up and reveals her obvious makeup, the white and red splotches on her face and body. She looks like an actress in a haunted house. But she smiles at Mulder, and that smile is not human.

She drops the stone, raises her knife. Mulder starts to back away, hand reaching for his gun.

The girl shrieks, a horrible sound, and raises her knife before lunging at him. Mulder staggers backwards, raises his gun and fires at the girl, aiming for an area that won't be fatal in case he is wrong. The bullet makes no impact, only blows the girl backwards onto the breezeway. Mulder steadies himself and aims the gun.

The girl stands slowly, brandishing her knife. She is glaring at Mulder, her eyes as inhuman as her smile. She makes a low growling sound in her throat and steps towards him, but the creaking open of a door and Scully’s frantic, “Mulder?” stops her. Her eyes flicker down the breezeway, towards their room, and blessedly, she doesn't head towards the sound. She instead steps backwards into the shadows and simply disappears, much in the same matter that the clown did.

“Mulder!” Scully is there, suddenly, gun drawn, Jackson right on her tail. “What happened?” she demands.

“We need to go,” Mulder says. “We need to go, right now. Scully, get the car keys.”

She doesn't argue, mercifully; there'll be time for that later. She disappears back to their room. Jackson stays, staring at Mulder in astonishment. “You saw it, didn't you? You saw the demon,” he says knowingly.

Mulder gulps, nods.

\---

He tells them what happened on the way to Jackson's house, where they're planning to wait out morning. Jackson starts nodding instantly when Mulder describes the girl. “She was in the house, just like that,” he says. “Sharpening a knife above us, and then she jumps down at you. I think she was on a harness or something. Danny laughed so hard…” He stops, mid-sentence, and some familiar dark emotion flits over his face.

“Jackson?” asks Mulder, hoping to distract him. “Were there clowns in the haunted house?”

“Oh, yeah. Whole freaky room full of white stuff and strobe lights and clowns getting up in your face. Why?”

“Just wondering,” Mulder says. He exchanges a look with Scully, who clutches the steering wheel a little harder, grinds her teeth in frustration, but says nothing.

They get to Jackson's house relatively quick, a charming farm house with _Van de Kamp_ painted cheerfully on the mailbox. Jackson lets them in with his key. “Make yourself at home or whatever,” he says, flipping on the lights.

“Thanks, Jackson,” Scully says as they come inside, into the living room. “Do you go by… Jack or anything?”

“Just Jackson.”

“Okay.” Scully smiles a little. “Jackson, you should get some sleep, okay, sweetie? We'll stay awake. We'll take care of you.”

Jackson shrugs. “I don't want you guys to get hurt.”

“We have guns, remember?” Mulder says, half teasing.

“Oh, right.” He shrugs sheepishly, grinning a little. “I'll be upstairs, I guess. Good luck shooting the demon, Mr. Mulder.”

“Just Mulder is fine,” Mulder says.

“Mulder,” repeats Jackson, waving awkwardly at them before turning and leaving the room, his feet pounding the stairs.

The strangeness of being in a stranger's house only increases when they're alone. Scully exchanges an uncomfortable look with Mulder as she sits on the couch. He sits beside her, close enough that she can feel the body heat coming off of him. “Are you hurt, Mulder?” she asks, shuffling her fingers through his hair.

“I'm fine, Scully. She missed me by a mile.” His shoulder bumps hers companionably. “It was weird as hell, though.”

“Not really,” she says thoughtfully. “I have a new theory. What if the employees of the haunted house are working together on this? They might be trying to scare people somehow… this could be some kind of prank on Jackson, hell, his friend could be in on it… or maybe they're trying to kill Jackson and his friend. Or they kidnapped the friend and don't want Jackson to expose them. Whatever the case, I think the employees are the perpetrators. That would explain why you saw the clown and the girl with the knife that Jackson remembers from the house.”

“But it doesn't explain how they _literally_ melted into the shadows, Scully. Or why my bullet had no effect on the girl.”

“You said you shot at her shoulder? Maybe you missed her.”

“She was _blown backwards from the blow,_ Scully.”

“You could've been seeing things.”

Mulder rolls his eyes, highly exaggerated. Scully smirks a little at him, resting her head on his shoulder. “Well, whatever the case, I'd say this all warrants looking into the carnival tomorrow,” he says, giving in a little. He puts an arm around her shoulders.

“How the hell are we going to do that?”

“I brought our badges, remember? If we can convince the carnival people not to call the local police, then no one will ever have to know outside of the boys’ families.”

“Hmm.” Scully turns her face into his shoulder, her hair brushing against the bare skin of his arm below his sleeve. “And what if someone does happen to let it slip that Agents Mulder and Scully are in small town Wyoming?”

“As soon as the kid is safe, we make a run for it.” She’s quiet, leaning into him. He presses a kiss to the part of her hair. “Come on, Scully, you have to admit that the kid isn't safe.”

“He's not,” she says. “I just… oh, I don't know. I'd feel better if his parents were here. Or the police, or someone who could actually protect him.”

“ _We_ can protect him. We might be the most qualified to.”

Scully lifts her head, her blue eyes glinting in the darkness. “It's not a shadow demon.”

“Oh ye of little faith.”

“Twenty-four years together, Mulder. What did you expect?”

Mulder grins, hand running up and down her back. “Follow the evidence, Agent Scully.”

She licks her lower lip determinedly. “I'll make you a deal, Mulder. If it's proven--concrete evidence--that the people or things pursuing Jackson are, in fact, human, can we call the police and let them take charge in this?”

“That would be more than responsible, Scully, if humans really are responsible.” She nods, satisfied. “But if they're not human…” he ventures.

“Oh, great. How, exactly, are we going to catch that? We're not the Ghostbusters, Mulder.”

“Oh, you loved the remake,” he teases her, and she gives him a look somewhere between a glare and a prodding: _Well?_ “I'm working on a plan,” he says. “First we need to find out what happened. Establish a timeline. See if we can discern Danny’s whereabouts.”

“And get some sleep.” Her hand is on his cheek. “You look exhausted, Mulder.”

“I'm not exhausted,” he protests, but the fatigue is creeping up on him like the rising tide. Scully gives him a knowing look. “It feels wrong to sleep in a stranger's house.”

“We don't have any choice; we have to protect Jackson, and we couldn't stay at the hotel.”

“What if that thing comes back?”

“Then I'll shoot it.” Scully looks vaguely amused. “I have plenty of practice. Go to sleep, Mulder. Tomorrow will be a long day.”

He concedes, kisses her forehead and curls up against her on the unfamiliar couch. Upstairs, a teenage boy they have inadvertently become responsible for sleeps. “Hey, Scully?” he mumbles, head against her hip. “This is one of the more bizarre things we've done, don't you think?”

“This is more bizarre than the lizard-human?” He doesn't say anything. She sighs, says, “Yes, it is.” They both know why, know what is at the back of their minds. They don't speak on it.

Scully traces lines on his forehead and orders him to sleep. He drifts off slowly, dreams restlessly of knives being sharpened, the sound scraping his ears, and a little boy with Scully's eyes staring up at him.

 


	2. part two: october 31, 2017

Jackson comes loping downstairs at seven a.m., when the sun is pinking the horizon. Scully hasn't moved from her spot on the couch, feeling like a bizarre burglar, but at least Mulder is awake to keep her company. The kid does something of an awkward double take when he sees them, then remembers. “Morning,” he says in a rush. “Did the shadow demon come back?”

“No,” Mulder says with a yawn. (He only got a few hours of sleep.) “Free and clear all night, or so Scully tells me.”

“How did you sleep?” Scully asks instinctively. She's aware she is acting vaguely maternal, but she's also not sure what the right way is to act in this situation. (It's not like she has any right, but it's also not like anyone else is here to do it.) She's somewhat deferring to a more subdued manner she adapted when her nephew was about this age and she visited Bill in California. (She pushes aside the thought that she never got to do this for anyone else.)

Jackson shrugs awkwardly. “Fine, I guess. Have you figured out how to find Danny?”

“We thought we'd go take a look at the carnival and see what we could find,” Mulder says. _Him, we hope,_ Scully adds silently, _and hopefully perfectly intact._

The kid perks right up at that. “That's a great idea! When do we leave?”

“You're not coming,” Scully says automatically. Whatever is going on here, taking Jackson with them is out of the question. He's a child, for God's sake. “Isn't it a school day?”

Jackson deflates, shoulders slumping. “You've got to be kidding,” he says. “Danny is my friend. I can't go to school when he's missing! I want to help!”

“We can't take you into a potentially dangerous situation,” says Mulder. (Scully thanks him silently for backing her up; she was afraid he would advocate for the kid to come along.) “Sorry, kid. You asked for our help finding your friend, and we do want to help. But your parents asked us to protect you, and we wouldn't be doing that if we took you into a dangerous situation.”

“How will you be protecting me if I'm at school?” Jackson retorts.

“The shadow demon has only attacked when you're alone, right?” Mulder counters. “Not when you were in a large group of people. You didn't see a sign of it when you were with a bunch of people at the carnival, looking for Danny. And it didn't attack me until I was alone, either. Plus, I'd guess that your high school has security guards who are there to protect the students. I'd say school is the safest place you can be.”

Jackson’s shoulders slump further and he kicks at a corner of the rug, not looking at them. “This is weird as shit,” he mutters. “You acting like my parents and all.”

Scully swallows the lump in her throat and says, “We're just trying to do what your parents would want, kiddo. Speaking of, have you talked to them this morning? I wanted to talk to them, get their okay for us to take care of you.”

“I called em. They're still on their way. Mom said to tell you guys thanks. She, um, she thought I should go to school, too. Said I should let you guys look for Danny and stay out of the way, that I'd be safer there.” Jackson shrugs again, sheepishly. “How the hell am I going to get to school? My car is still at the carnival, Danny had the keys.”

“We can drop you off,” Mulder says.

Jackson scrunches up his nose in disapproval, but nods. “Be right back,” he says, and disappears back into the house.

Scully doesn't look at Mulder. Jackson is right about this being weird. The rhythm is all off. They are acting like parents, albeit rather awkward ones. Even if they have communicated with the parents, they haven't been officially ordered to do anything. They are just the friendly neighborhood X-Files agents who stepped in when a paranormal problem popped up. But they are not his parents. They are parents to a child they don't know how to find.

They drive the kid to school per his directions. The directions are all he says on the ride. When Scully looks into the backseat, she finds him hunched over his phone, thumb moving. At first she thinks it's some kind of video game, but then she sees the name above the button he's hitting. He's calling his friend, repeatedly. “Hey, Jackson?” she asks. “How's your leg?”

“It's fine.” He hits the button again. The phone starts to ring. “You should probably drop me off a couple blocks away,” he says. “Everyone knows me around here, and they will definitely call the cops if they see me driving around with a stranger.”

And Scully is reminded of the bizarre awkwardness of the situation. “ _We're_ cops,” Mulder says. “Sort of. But we’ll drop you off here, I guess.”

He pulls over to the curb. “Thanks,” Jackson says. “Want to just meet me after school? I don't want to complicate things by, like, having two strangers pick me up.”

“I suppose that's fine. Somewhere close to the school, though; I don't want you running around alone too much,” says Scully.

“There's a diner. I'll text you the address.” Jackson opens the door, climbing out. “You'll text me?” he asks, nervously. “If you find him?”

“Of course, kid,” Mulder says encouragingly.

Jackson nods, hand on the door. “This is still weird as shit, by the way,” he says. “But… thanks. For looking for Danny. And for helping me.”

Scully smiles at him. He shuts the door and walks away, backpack dangling from his shoulders.

Mulder pulls away from the curb. “Well, the kid's right about one thing,” Scully says. “This is weird.”

“It's not like we've never had to take care of a kid before, Scully,” Mulder points out. “Remember Kevin Kryder?”

“Yeah, but we've never taken care of a grumpy teenager on a case we’re not officially on.”

“You're thinking about William,” Mulder says. Quietly.

They never used to talk about this, but now. Now it would seem ridiculous _not_ to talk about it, while they're actively looking for him. (Their son.) But they are out of practice. They don't have real conversations, not about William.

Scully looks out the window, at the small town flitting by. “Yes,” she admits, fingers on the chilled glass. “I mean, how could I not? Here we are looking for William, and we meet this boy around his age who needs our help. Of course I'm thinking of him.” She presses her palm flat against the glass. Their son will save the world or destroy it. The world hangs in the balance, on whether they can find William before his grandfather does, and here they are chasing monsters and saving a kid who's old enough to be their son. “Of course I am,” she says softly. “Aren't you?”

“Of course,” Mulder replies, just as softly. “I just wanted to see if you were.”

Scully feels him take her hand and she squeezes tightly. “We're going to find him, Scully,” he says. “I know you think this is going to set us back, but I also know how horrible you would feel if we didn't help this kid. And no matter what, we are going to find him.”

Scully squeezes his hand again, turning towards him in her seat. “I know,” she says. “I know we are.”

They drive the rest of the way to the carnival in silence.

\---

At the carnival, all of the employees are in full Halloween mode, running around like crazy to try and prepare for the Big Night. The owners seem irritated at the two FBI agents following them around with badges and questions. “Did that kid from last night send you?” the man in the jack-o-lantern t-shirt snaps at Mulder.

“Sir, a child is missing,” Scully says patiently. “It doesn't matter who sent us. We need your cooperation in the search.”

The owners grumble a few times, but let them look around the carnival. They mill around the stands and rides, interviewing the employees. Mulder passes around a picture of Danny that Jackson texted to him and Scully routinely asks questions about the night before. No one has seen him. “Wasn't some kid asking about this guy the other night?’’ the popcorn stand guy asks, scratching underneath his chin. “Said a monster got him or something.” Scully clears her throat irritably and lets Mulder take over. The rest of the interviews go much in this form.

“No one saw anything last night, clearly,” Scully says with some irritation once they are finished with every part of the bare bones of the carnival expect for the haunted house itself.

“Which makes sense,” says Mulder. “With the story Jackson told, there'd be no witnesses.”

“If someone really did kidnap--or god forbid, kill--Danny, than they would've had to do something with him,” says Scully. “And if no one saw anything… than either the perpetrator had to come back after hours…”

“Or he's still in the haunted house,” Mulder says.

They're facing the clapboard house at the end of the dusty road, red painted sign identifying it as the house. “Want to go inside and look around?” Scully asks.

“Oh, Scully.” He grins. “We have the worst luck with haunted houses.”

As it would seem, they do have something of a bad luck with haunted houses--it's just not the kind they were expecting. Two people are talking in front of the house, two teenager-ish people. The one closest to Mulder and Scully is a tall teenage girl that Mulder doesn't recognize until she turns around and he sees her face. The hair is different, smooth, long, dark hair instead of ratty blonde ringlets, and she isn't wearing ghostly zombie makeup, but it's her. The girl who attacked him last night.

Mulder tenses from head to toe when he sees her, and he clutches for Scully's arm. “Scully,” he hisses. “Scully, it's the girl from last night. The… demon thing.”

When he looks down at her, she looks extremely grumpy, mouth set in a thin line. “Oh, we have bigger problems, Mulder,” she says grimly, and motions back to the duo.

Upon a second look, he sees that the person talking to the knife-demon girl is none other than Jackson Van de Kamp, whose face reddens at the sight of them. “He's supposed to be at school,” Mulder says, stunned, dumbfounded.

The girl is talking to Jackson, brow furrowed. “Are those the guys who are looking for Danny?” she asks, and Jackson nods, looking at the ground. The girl turns and walks towards them, hand extended. Mulder holds back from flinching away. “You guys are looking for Danny?” she asks again, and Scully nods. “I'm Lucy Gerald,” the girl says. “I'm Danny’s girlfriend and an employee in the haunted house.”

“You're Danny’s girlfriend?” Mulder repeats, dumbfounded.

“And you work in the haunted house,” Scully repeats dryly.

Jackson is approaching them, awkwardly. Lucy Gerald is glaring at him. Between Lucy and Scully, this cluster of people must not seem very welcoming to the kid. And Mulder isn't too happy with him, either, even if ditching school to look for his friend is something that he would do.

“I can explain everything,” Jackson says.

\---

“So you play a knife-sharpening girl in the haunted house?” Scully asks, scribbling notes on her pad of paper.

Lucy (who Mulder suspects isn't the girl who attacked him last night, but in reality, the basis that the demon used) nods. “Yeah, I, like, lunge at people in a harness. It's cool. It's more of a temporary job, actually, while the carnival’s in town… but yeah. I was super excited to get the job. Danny came to visit me here all the time.”

“What do you remember about the night Danny disappeared?” Scully continues.

“He came in and said hi to me before the show started. Said he and Jackson would be coming through at some point. I didn't know that'd be the last time I'd see him before he disappeared--or that Jack wouldn't tell me that my _boyfriend_ was gone.” She shoots another searing glare at Jackson.

“Look, Lu, I would've told you! But you weren't there, you don't know how terrifying it was. That thing was chasing me, and I was scared to death for Danny and myself. I forgot. I came here this morning to tell you.”

“Yeah, sure. Real classy, Van de Kamp,” Lucy snaps, tugging on her sleeves.

“Speaking of, Miss Gerald…” Mulder says quickly. “Did you see the, um, monster Jackson talked about? In the house?”

Lucy shrugs. “I dunno. It's a fucking haunted house, man. There's a lot of weird sounds. I've never _seen_ anything. And I haven't seen Danny, either. Maybe you should call the police?”

“We are the police,” Scully says wearily.

“Well, okay.” Lucy reaches for her bag, standing up. “I hope I helped some, and I hope you find Danny. There's no one inside the haunt right now if you want to look around.”

“One more question, Miss Gerald,” Mulder says suddenly. Lucy stops, turning to face him with a questioning look on her face. “You weren't… you were at the Motel 6 last night, were you?” Face flickering with surprise, she shakes her head. “You weren't… doing your haunted house bit on the roof of the breezeway?”

“Um, no. Can I go now?”

“Sure, go on,” Scully says, a slight edge in her voice. “We'll get in touch with you if we require further questioning.”

“Okay.” Lucy addresses Jackson sternly as she walks off: “Text me if you find him, Van de Kamp.”

Jackson shifts awkwardly in his seat, scratching the back of his neck. “It wasn't Lucy who attacked you,” he says to Mulder. “I think this… thing… might be able to imitate people.”

“And I think you said you were going to school,” Scully says, crossing her arms.

Jackson gulps. “I thought maybe Lucy would have a lead.”

“That's something we could've looked into,” Scully says sternly. “If you'd told us that Danny had a girlfriend.”

Jackson is staring at the ground. “I can… I can show you the room where Danny disappeared,” he offers.

“Fine.” Scully is still giving Jackson a stern look that gives Mulder a feeling somewhere between fascination and regret. “But no more running off. That is not okay. We told your parents we'd protect you, and we can't do that if we don't know where you are.”

“Sure, fine, whatever.” Jackson scrambles to his feet, motioning them towards the house. “C’mon, I haven't gotten a chance to look around yet. Maybe Danny is still in the house!”

\---

Danny is not in the house.

Lucy was right, the entire house is empty. With the lights on, it has lost some of its eerie advantage. It just looks like a rundown mansion full of props. There's no need for flashlights, but they search the entire house from head to toe. No sign of Danny.

Jackson reminds Scully of Mulder in the moment, strangely enough, as he feverishly throws himself into finding his friend. The disappointment that flickers across his face every time they don't. Finally, he leads them towards the end of the house, practically dragging Mulder, to show them the room where Danny disappeared. “It's here, it's right here,” he says as they come to a nondescript chestnut door with a sheet of plastic taped to it. “I remember, because we went through the clown room and then we saw this door and Danny opened it…”

“Jackson?” With two fingers, Scully lifts the sheet of plastic to reveal the bright yellow front, the red letters reading DO NOT ENTER.

Jackson visibly falters. “That… that was not there before,” he says uncertainly. “This is the room, it…” He reaches past Scully to yank it open and shoves his way inside. They follow, Mulder flicking on the light as they enter.

The inside of the room is completely empty. Four walls, ceiling and floor. No windows or doors or anywhere that Danny could be kept hostage. No haunted house props. It looks like an oversized closet.

Jackson is kneeling on the floor, poking at floorboards. “Here!” he says suddenly. “Scully, look--it's my blood from when I was cut.”

Scully kneels beside him on the floor and sees the red-brown splotches under his finger. “I see that, Jackson,” she says uncertainly.

“This can't be… I don't… I'm gonna go find Lucy.” And with that, the kid gets up and runs out of the room. Scully makes no move to follow.

“Scully?” Mulder's hand brushes over her shoulder. “What are you thinking?”

“If it weren't for the scratch on his leg and whatever attacked you the other night, I'd be convinced that this was all a prank,” says Scully. She gets to her feet slowly. “I'm still considering the possibility of a prank… I just don't think Jackson isn't in on it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, think about it, Mulder. Anything could've made that cut on Jackson's leg. Danny has a girlfriend who works at the haunted house who could help him pull this off. You're the only one who's actually seen anything, one of the things you saw looked like Lucy and the other one was wearing a mask. This could very easily be a mean-spirited prank on Jackson.”

“Don't forget, I shot whatever attacked me, and Lucy Gerald looks pretty damn intact,” Mulder says. “And I saw both the clown and the girl disappear.”

“You could've missed Lucy, Mulder, we talked about this,” Scully says. “And you might’ve been seeing things… hell, Jackson might’ve been seeing things. No one saw or heard anything that suggests Danny was really abducted last night. I'm starting to have my doubts.”

“Starting?” Mulder raises an eyebrow. “You're forgetting, Scully, we're experts in the unexplained. Just because no one saw anything doesn't mean that Danny wasn't abducted. Something supernatural could've easily done something without anyone seeing.”

“Yes, but there's usually some kind of suggestion of that,” Scully counters. “All I'm seeing here is suggestion that all this was faked.”

“Of course it is, Scully,” Mulder snaps. “That's all you ever see.”

“What the hell does that mean?” she protests. “We're not even supposed to be here, Mulder, remember, we're supposed to be looking for…”

“Mulder, Scully!” Jackson reappears in the room, panting hard from clearly having ran back. “Lucy’s gone. Her boss has no idea where she is, he says she doesn't have a lunch break for another two hours and he thought she was working on putting together one of their fake ghosts. But I looked and she's just… she's just gone.”

\---

Lucy Gerald’s car is still in the parking lot, but there's no sign of her on the entire carnival grounds, leaving Mulder and Jackson certain that whatever monster got Danny also got Lucy, and leaving Scully certain that this is all an elaborate plan so that Lucy and Danny could run away together. (She doesn't share her suspicions, of course.)

In the end, they have nothing to go on. In the end, Jackson is hungry, so they end up at the diner he mentioned earlier. “Mom texted,” he tells them as soon as the waitress takes their order and leaves with their menus. “She said they'll be in town soon. I told them to meet us here.”

Scully breathes out a sigh of relief. “That's good,” she says. She'll feel better once they're here, she thinks. Once they can get some straight history on Danny and can decide, once and for all, whether or not they need to keep looking for him.

“Yeah.” Jackson plays with his napkin. He's not looking at either of them. “You don't believe me anymore, do you,” he says.

Scully doesn't say anything. “Jackson, why didn't you tell us that Danny had a girlfriend who worked in the haunted house?” Mulder asks, and she can't read his tone.

“Because…” Jackson clears his throat awkwardly, cerulean eyes flashing in the light above the table. “Because Lucy and Danny used to talk about running away together.” Scully holds in the urge to say _I told you so_ ; she doesn't think it would help anything at the moment. “They both hate this town so much--Lucy’s homeschooled, she never gets out or sees anyone, they're both so lonely… but I thought if I told you that, you wouldn't want to look for Danny. Even if Mulder believed me…” He's looking straight at Scully now. “I wasn't sure if you would.”

Scully swallows uncomfortably, says, “You should've told us.”

Jackson fixes her with a determined look. “Who's William?”

Mulder's hand jolts, sending water cascading across the table. Scully's frozen in place, horrified. “How do you know about William?” Mulder asks, voice low and guarded.

“I've heard you talking about him,” Jackson says. “Is he the one you're supposed to be looking for?”

Scully breathes sharply, her fingernails digging into the cracked leather of the booth. “Jackson, I don't…”

“I heard you in the haunted house,” he says quietly.

She's not looking at Mulder. She's staring at the teenage boy sitting across from them, thinking he has them figured out. There are so many things she wants to say, but they do not owe an explanation to this random kid in a small town in Wyoming. He's the one who lied to them, for fuck’s sake. He's the one who lied to them.

“Who's William?” Jackson asks again, softer this time.

The bell of the diner door rings sharply, and everyone in the booth turns towards the door. “Mom,” Jackson says, his voice as sharp as the jabs in Scully's chest, and he scrambles to his feet and runs to hug the woman in the door.

Mom. She was a mother once, and now she is not, and she is supposed to be looking for her son. She gets up from the booth. “Scully,” Mulder says next to her. His fingers brush over the bend of her wrist.

She clenches her jaw. “I'm going back to the hotel, Mulder.”

“Scully?” His voice a question this time.

“Danny ran away,” she says, her voice hard. “We need to find our son, Mulder.”

“Scully.” His fingers tighten around her wrist, keeping her from leaving. “We never said William's name in the haunted house. As far as I know, we haven't referred to William by name in a place where Jackson could hear us.”

“What are you saying?” she hisses. Behind them, Jackson is frantically talking to four adults, hands waving. There's no truth to this and she wants to leave.

“I don't know what I'm saying, Scully. I'm saying…” His eyes are pleading. “I'm saying we can't walk away from this right now.”

Scully looks at the kid again. He reminds her of someone, but she can't put her finger on who. “You can take care of this, Mulder,” she says softly. “You were always better at that. I'm going to go look for our son.”

“Scully…” he tries again, but she's already pulled free and is walking towards the door. Jackson's eyes widen as he sees her pass and he says, “Scully,” too, in a tone that sounds like an apology, but she doesn't stop, and if anyone asked her she wouldn't be able to tell them why.

\---

Mulder and Jackson give a brief version of the events of the past day to the Van de Kamps and Danny’s parents. When they want to know why his partner left, he lies and says she wasn't feeling well.

Mulder tells them what he saw, the clown and the strange girl. Jackson fills in the holes in his story, swearing a thousand times up and down as to what he saw. Danny’s parents don't believe them. Of course they don't, Mulder fills in bitterly; he is more than used to this by now, but it never stops being irritating, and it stings a little more right after his wife has run off for not believing him.

“You've _got_ to be kidding me,” Jackson says, voice layered thick with disgust, when Danny’s parents reveal their feelings. “I saw him disappear! I _saw_ him. Look at my leg!” He motions furiously at where he'd rolled up his jeans to show them Scully's bandaging job.

“Mae, something clearly attacked Jackson…” Mrs. Van de Kamp ventures.

“That doesn't matter,” Danny’s father snaps. “No one in their right mind would believe that story!”

“The FBI does,” Jackson snaps back, petulant.

“Well then, that man is crazy, too.” Danny’s father crosses his arms. “Our son is missing, and you put this crackpot on the case? Instead of calling the police?”

“He’s an _FBI agent_ and I knew he'd believe me,” Jackson says.

“Well, after hearing that pack of bullshit, I think it's more likely that Daniel just ran away. It wouldn't be the first time, you know,” says Danny’s father. Danny’s mother's mouth thins, but she nods in agreement.

“You've got to be fucking kidding me,” Jackson growls.

“Jackson!” his father scolds.

Jackson ignores him. His fists are balled by his sides. “Danny’s out there, in trouble, and you just want to ignore that? Let him die?”

“Daniel is not going to die,” Danny’s mother says. “And we are _not_ ignoring him. We're going to go and look for him right now.”

“You're not going to find him,” Jackson hisses. “You're not.” He turns and storms out, towards his parents’ parked car.

Danny’s parents exit directly after that, with some whispered parting words to the Van de Kamps and no acknowledgement of Mulder. The Van de Kamps shift awkwardly as the diner bell jingles behind them. “We… don't know how to thank you for protecting Jackson, Agent Mulder,” Jackson's father says finally. “It sounds like… I don't know what would've happened if you and your partner hadn't been there.”

“Yeah, well…” Mulder balls his hands in his pockets, bouncing up and down on his feet. “It's all part of the job description.”

“Hey!” Mulder turns to see the cook jabbing a spatula at them. “Either buy something or leave!”

“Would you mind coming back to the house with us?” Jackson's mother asks quickly. “I know it's a lot to ask, but… in case Danny really didn't run away…”

_He didn't,_ Mulder wants to say. “Sure,” he says out loud.

Which is how he ends up jostling around in the back of the Van de Kamps car with Jackson while they drive home. (Scully took the car.) Jackson retreats upstairs to his room as soon as they get home, so Mulder suffers through an awkward afternoon and meal with the Van de Kamps while they wait for something to happen. Either for Danny to turn up or for the thing to attack again, he supposes. Scully texts a few times but he swipes the messages aside without looking at them.

Darkness starts to fall, slowly and then quickly, and trick-or-treaters start to mill up the Van de Kamps’ dusty driveway. Mulder had actually forgotten it was Halloween up until this moment. He almost can't believe it.

The Van de Kamps make light conversation about the time spent protecting Jackson and his work on the X-Files until there is nothing left to say, nothing left to do but to pick at Halloween candy. Mulder tears at a wrapper absently until Jackson's dad suggests he go check on Jackson. “Just to… make sure.”

Mulder is relieved for the excuse to leave. He follows Mrs. Van de Kamp’s instructions up the stairs and down the dark hallway, and knocks on Jackson's door. “Come in,” he says, and Mulder opens the door.

Jackson is hunched over a ragged cardboard box when Mulder comes in, labeled _2002_ in faded Sharpie. He sits up when Mulder comes in, but keeps something made of brightly colored fabric on his lap. “Oh, hey, Agent Mulder,” he says uncertainly.

“Mulder is fine,” Mulder says, surveying the room a little. Overstuffed bookshelf, messy desk. Jackson motions to the desk chair and Mulder sits in it.”How, um… how are you doing, kid?” he tries, an attempt at conversation.

Jackson shrugs. “I'm worried about Danny.”

“I can imagine,” Mulder says softly. So many times he's lost people, more than enough to emphasize with the kid.

“Yeah, um.” Jackson twists the cloth on his lap. “Why did Scully leave?”

“Oh, she, um…”

“Was it because of what I said? About William?”

“Um…” Mulder sighs, shifting in the desk chair. “The thing you've gotta understand about Scully is that she's under a lot of pressure. Aside from the fact that she doesn't even believe in this… demon stuff… we're, uh, we're looking for someone, and she's very grounded in that. It's not that she doesn't care, it's just…”

“William,” Jackson supplies. “You're looking for William.”

“Yeah,” Mulder says, defeated. “Yeah, we are.”

“Who's William?”

Mulder leans his head in his hands briefly, tries not to think of his son in danger somewhere. “He's our son,” he says.

Jackson doesn't prod anymore. When Mulder looks up, he's staring at the fabric in his lap. The patterns on it are blurry, but they look half familiar. Kind of like… stars. Stars and UFOs.

“Jackson,” he ventures. “How did you know about William? The only time we ever called him by name is after we dropped you off at school, and there's no way you could've heard us there.”

“Um, no.” Jackson is shaking his head. “No, you definitely brought it up around me. Last night… at the house…”

“No,” Mulder says. “No, we definitely didn't talk about it then. I remember.”

Jackson's hands twist into fists around the UFO cloth in his lap. No, not cloth--something like a onesie. Mulder is about to ask him what else he's hiding, but what ends up coming out of his mouth is, “What's all that stuff?”

“Oh, um…” Jackson's hands move in a clumsy but quick motion, dropping the onesie back into the box. “Just some stuff from when Mom and Dad first adopted me. No big deal.”

“You were adopted?” Mulder asks, in disbelief.

Jackson nods, turning his bright blue eyes up to meet Mulder's.

Something springs forth in Mulder's mind, like the light of a flame. “Jack--” he starts.

A creaking footstep out in the hall before the door slams open.

Mulder and Jackson both get to their feet and turn to face what's in the doorway. It's a kid, a little boy in a cowboy costume. But there is red smeared along his face, red on his teeth when he smiles menacingly (in the same way that the not-Lucy had the night before), red spilling out of the plastic pumpkin he extends forward.

“Mulder?” Jackson whispers. “What do we…”

The boy lunges at Mulder, making the decision for them. Mulder stumbles back, startled, fumbling for his gun, but the boy slams into him with more force than expected and the gun goes clattering out of his hand. He collapses against the bed, groaning at the pain that reverberates through his back.

“Not my weapon of choice,” the kid says in an unnerving voice, scooping up Mulder's gun. In his hand, it melts away to shadows.

“Hey!” Mulder yelps, mostly a stalling technique. “I _liked_ that gun!”

The child smiles sweetly before lunging again, fingernails glinting sharp as knives. Mulder closes his eyes and waits for the pain, but it never comes. He hears a loud thump. He opens his eyes and sees the demon-child crumpled against the wall, sees Jackson with his hand extended, shaking just a little, but his eyes blazing enough to make up for it. “Where the fuck is my friend?” he shouts.

The boy's eyes glint red and he growls. Jackson flicks his hand in a sharp motion, and the demon slams into the wall again. “Tell me!”

The lights flicker off and Mulder yelps, reaching for the kid. When they come back on, Jackson is still there, and so is Scully. Scully is hunched against the wall in the demon's place. It takes a few good looks to tell it is not Scully, but the demon imitating Scully. Like the fucking doppelgangers. Just his fucking luck.

“You don't want to hurt me, Jackson,” it says in Scully's voice, and God help him, he falters.

“I-I won't,” Jackson stammers. “I won't if you tell me where Danny is.”

It smiles, crueler than Scully smiles. “Jackson, yo-you have to fight it,” Mulder says, and he can barely get the words out. It's _Scully_.

“I don't see you doing any better,” it says, turning its grin on Mulder, and he feels something clamp around his ankle all of a sudden. He can't move away, he's rooted to the spot.

“Tell. Me. Where. Danny. Is,” Jackson hisses through clenched teeth. He's putting on a good act, but his hands are still shaking. Poor kid, his hands are still shaking.

“I don't think I will,” the horrible Scully-thing says, and this is so much worse than the doppelgangers. _So_ much worse. “And whether I do or I don't, you still won't hurt me, and do you know why? Do you know why, Jackson?”

“No,” the kid hisses.

The room is shaking, and its nails are digging hard into Mulder's ankle and he still can't move, can't even find the strength to talk. “You won't hurt me, Jackson, sweetie,” the thing says sweetly, in the voice of the woman Mulder loves. “Because you know I'm your m--”

“NO,” Jackson roars, and the lights flicker off, and the room shakes hard. Mulder absently tries to rate it on the Richter scale as he is thrown back and forth so hard that his teeth rattle in his head. The thing is hissing, and its claws are digging into Mulder's leg hard enough to draw blood, and Jackson is saying things Mulder can't understand. And the shadows are surrounding them, choking him. He's a part of them.

He tries to fight as the laughter of the thing that doesn't sound like Scully anymore echoes through his ears, but it's too late. Everything goes black.

\---

Scully has typed at least five apologies to Mulder and has received a reply on none of them. She's frustrated and worried and sad. She is trying. She is. She thought they'd agree that they'd both try. She had a knee-jerk reaction like this during the first two X-Files; she thought he'd expect it. Maybe this one is because she's never actually walked away before. Or maybe it's because there's a kid involved. This is Gibson Praise and Kevin Kryder and Amber LaPierre all over again: it's always the kids with them.

Scully sits hunched over her laptop at the little table, fingers moving rapidly across the keyboard. She is combing through adoption records, trying to untangle the thread she'd knotted tightly to hide William. So tightly that she'd never be able to find him. She's buried so deeply in her screen that she misses the first call (she keeps her phone on vibrate out of annoyance for all the little sounds it makes). When she finally looks up, her screen announces the missed call from an unknown number, Wyoming area code. And then the number calls again, vibrating like an angry bee against the tabletop.

_Mulder,_ she thinks, _probably broken his phone again and calling from someone else's._ She never answers numbers she doesn't recognize, but. Maybe he needs her help. Maybe this is their chance to bury the hatchet. She presses Send and lifts the phone to her ear.

“Scully, it's me!” someone unfamiliar roars into the phone.

Mulder's typical greeting, but the voice is too high to be Mulder. “Who is ‘me’?” she demands.

“Jackson Van de Kamp! You need to meet me at the carnival, right away. I stole my parents’ car.”

“You stole your parents’…” Closing her eyes wearily, she rubs her temples. “Jackson, what's going on? Where's Mulder?”

“That's what I'm trying to tell you,” Jackson says frantically. “The demon thingy, it took him.” Scully's blood freezes in her veins and she finds herself unable to speak. “It has my friend and my friend's girlfriend, I think, and now it has your boyfriend. We need to kill it. We need to kill it and save them.”

She has the same tight feeling in her chest as she's had a thousand times before, the underlying monologue of _I never should've left them._ “Jackson?” she says softly.

“Yeah?”

“I'll meet you there.” He sighs with relief, audibly, on the other line. “Don't do anything until I get there,” she says sharply. “I'm serious.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Jackson stammers, and she hangs up and lets the phone fall on the bed.

She wants to swear or cry out or both. She settles for swearing as she rummages for her gun. Why did she think she could leave him alone and disaster wouldn't result? Part of her wants to say that at least the kid didn't get hurt; the other part of her wants to vehemently protest that this is just as bad, with Mulder, the most equipped to fight a monster or whatever, gone, and her taking a kid into danger. But she can't argue with him; he's as stubborn as Mulder in his determination to bring his friend home.

Her fingers close around her gun and she turns and bursts out of the hotel room, running straight for the door.

\---

Jackson is waiting for her at the entrance, eyes wide and nervous, fingers tangled in his jacket. “What happened?” Scully demands as she catches up to him.

Jackson motions her into the park, recounts how the demon attacked him and Mulder in his bedroom, taking on the form of a trick-or-treater first, and then her. Scully shudders; after the doppelganger mess, that couldn't have been easy for Mulder. “I think it had its hand around Mulder's ankle,” Jackson says in a rushed voice, motioning wildly with his hands. “He couldn't move. I tried to fight it, and then the lights turned off, and when they turned back on, he was gone.”

“Why did it take Mulder?” Scully demands. “Why did it take Mulder instead of you? I thought you were the intended target.”

Jackson bites his lower lip--just for a minute, he looks like a little kid. “I wouldn't let it.”

“You wouldn't _let_ it?”

“No,” Jackson says, and doesn't elaborate.

“Jackson, what do you mean you…”

“Would you rather it have taken me?”

Scully is stunned. “No, sweetie, of course not,” she says quickly, words tangling in her mouth. “You're our responsibility, we have to keep you safe. If anyone has to be taken, it's… it's better that it's Mulder. Now I know it's real.” Even if she has no idea how to fight it.

“Why do you believe me now?” Jackson demands. “Is it because your boyfriend was taken?”

Her face is growing red; she clenches her hand around the butt of her gun and searches the crash of people in costumes and masks for the haunted house. “I always believed you, Jackson,” she says, and she doesn't know why, but she did. “I believed everything you told me. I just thought you were being lied to.”

“Well, I wasn't.” Jackson's face is just as red as hers, but from anger instead of embarrassment. “I know what I saw.”

“I know,” Scully says quietly. He reminds her so much of Mulder in this moment, and she doesn't know why. “I know.” She sees the house and motions him towards it. “Over there.”

They walk in silence for a split second before Jackson asks, “If it were… your son, telling these stories… would you believe him?” And his tone isn't accusatory but actually questioning, and he sounds like a little kid.

Scully swallows hard. “Mulder told you?”

“Yeah,” Jackson mumbles. “Would you?”

“Jackson...”

“You people again!” It's the guy who runs the haunted house, who they butted heads with quite a few times that morning. “I thought you'd have more decency than to ruin the biggest night of the year, you know…”

Scully shoves her badge in his face. “Federal agent, you have to shut down the haunted house,” she says breathlessly.

“What? You've gotta be fucking kidding me!”

“Sir, I have reason to believe that there are three people in danger in there, two of whom are adolescents. Now if I were you, I'd shut down the house right now,” Scully says in the iciest tone she has.

The owner balks under her stare and turns to start filing people out of the attraction. “Nice,” Jackson mutters under his breath, admiringly if not somewhat begrudgingly. Despite the tumultuous emotions of the moment, Scully smiles a little.

“You can't go in with me, you know,” she says to the kid as they watch people file out of the house.

“What? Scully, you have to take me with you!”

“No, I really don't,” she says. “You're a minor, you're not trained in any of this, I am _not_ putting you in danger tonight…”

“You _need_ me,” Jackson insists, voice hard. “I can do… just watch this.” He levels his arm in front of him, extending his hand towards the house.

Scully watches in panicked disbelief as the red _Prepare for your DOOM_ sign rises a few inches out of the dirt. The last time she was someone do this was… no. She watches as Jackson lowers the sign gently, considers. She still wants to say no… but what are the odds that she can get any of them out on her own? “You can come,” she says quietly.

Jackson perks up. “Really?”

“Yes, but on three conditions. One, you have to do what I say. Two, you have to stay behind me. And three, if I tell you to leave, just listen.”

“Okay,” Jackson says, bouncing. “Okay.”

The people coming out of the house have slowed to a trickle. The guy motions them forward. Scully draws her gun and tells Jackson, “Stay behind me,” one more time before they enter the house.

\---

The house is badly lit from candles hanging from the wall. Jackson flips the light switch to no avail. “Power's out.”

Scully groans. “Of course it is.” She digs around in her bag for a flashlight, turns apologetically back to Jackson and says, “I only have the one.”

“I have one on my keychain.” He pulls the clanking metal out of his pocket and clicks on a little light that is insanely bright for its size. Scully nods, motions him forward, and the two of them keep going.

There are no actors in the haunted house, but some of the automated scares haven't been disabled yet. So around almost every corner, there is something rigged to pop out or look gruesome. Scully's nerves are strong enough that she just jolts a few times, tensing more and more with every jump scare, but Jackson is a lot more susceptible, jumping a mile most of the time and yelping briefly with fear. “Sorry,” he mumbles on the third or fourth one.

Scully pats his shoulder comfortingly. “It happens. Mulder hates these things, you know.”

“Really?” he asks. Scully nods, and his shoulders fall a little bit with relief. “We're almost there, I think,” he adds.

“What are we looking for?” Scully bats away the ghost girl that came flying out on a string as they enter the next room.

“The room where Danny and I were taken,” Jackson says. “I think that's where it lives.”

They reach the room a few minutes later, and Jackson reaches out and turns the doorknob without hesitation. The door's hinges squeal slowly and painfully as the door swings open; Scully shudders and enters the room, flashlight held up and motioning Jackson to stay behind her. Her beam bounces off the empty wall as they come into the room, flickers once and then goes out completely, plunging them into darkness as the door slams shut behind them. “Shit!” Jackson hisses, panicked, and she can hear the jangle of his keys as he tries to get the light to come on. Scully smacks her torch hard, shaking it in place, but no luck. “Danny?” Jackson calls, voice high with fear. “Mulder?”

The next thing Scully hears is footsteps. Footsteps that can't be coming from either of them, because it's headed straight for where Jackson stands behind her. Footsteps over the creaking floorboards, and then a growling sound.

“Jackson, look out!” Scully shouts, shoving him away and stumbling into the place where he stood a minute ago. Something slams into her, something large and dark and freezing cold that slams her to the floor with its weight. Acting on instinct, she whacks it hard in what she hopes is the head with her flashlight. The growling stops; hoping it's stunned, she fumbles for her gun and aims above her, crying out, “Jackson, get out of the way!” before firing three times into the mass above her.

Nothing in the room but Jackson's shallow breathing. There is a sharp sound from somewhere above her, and then Mulder's wounded voice: “Scully?”

For a moment, she can't breathe. Her grip goes slack on the gun. “ _Mulder_?”

The gun is knocked from her hand. Hysterical laughter fills her ears as she is pinned to the floor; she tries to struggle, but she can't move. She can feel the darkness surrounding her, getting closer, closer, closing in. “Scully!” Jackson yelps, but she can't do anything to help him, can't scream, can't do anything but…

She's somewhere else, all of a sudden, sprawled out on what feels something like a flat surface, and she hears Mulder's voice as if from underwater: “Scully?”

His arms go around her as he helps her up, and she leans into him, hugging him hard around the waist. “Mulder,” she says, voice thick with relief. “Where are we? Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” Mulder says, and he sounds kind of sad in the dark. “I don't know where we are.”

Scully blinks hard, clearing her clouded vision, and struggles to sit up without leaning on Mulder. They are in somewhere dark, somewhere without shape or form; a short distance away from them, Lucy Gerald huddles on the ground with a kid she recognizes from his photos. Danny. “God,” she says, hushed. “I should've believed him sooner.”

“Where did it get you?” Mulder touches her arm. “Back at the motel?”

“No,” she says foggily, remembering. Jackson. He's alone and defenseless now. _Fuck_. “No, at the haunted house. We came here to find you and Danny.”

Danny lifts his head from his girlfriend's shoulder. “Jackson? Is he here?”

“No,” Scully says, crouching on the floor in an attempt to gage their surroundings. “No, he's back there.”

“There's no way out, I've already looked,” says Mulder, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Jackson’s _here?_ You brought him with you?”

“No, of course not! He would've come either way, I couldn't have stopped him. He… stole his parents’ car and called me on the way.”

Mulder is startled at first, but he immediately dissolves into laughs. “That kid,” he says. “That kid is endlessly creative and mildly insane.”

“Yes.” Scully swallows, says softly, “He reminds me of you.”

Mulder blinks, stunned. Seems to consider things before saying, “He's out there, right now?”

“Yeah.” She's viciously hoping that the kid runs instead of trying to save her. “Why?”

In lieu of an answer, Mulder just squeezes his eyes shut and screws up his face in concentration. It reminds her a bit of the times when he'd try to read minds after his brain surgery, even though the power had been taken away. “What are you doing?” she asks.

“I'm calling for Jackson. If he hears me, he can find us.”

“Mulder, Jackson can't hear us here,” Scully says, but she knows that's not true.

Mulder opens his eyes, squeezes her arm encouragingly, knowingly. “Yes, he can, Scully.” He turns to face the teenagers in the corner. “Danny?”

Danny blinks slowly as he switches his focus from Lucy to them. “Yeah?”

“Has Jackson ever shown you a… thing he can do? Like lifting things with his mind? Or reading thoughts?” Mulder asks, and Scully suddenly knows how he knew about William. God, she never would've known…

“Yeah, I guess so,” Danny says nervously.

“I need you to think at him. Call out for him in your mind.” Mulder squeezes her arm again. “You too, Scully.”

“O-okay,” Danny says, and he closes his eyes in an expression similar to Mulder a few minutes ago. Mulder closes his eyes, too.

Scully feels strange, trying to do this, but no stranger, she supposes, than when she'd tried to reassure Mulder when he was sick and reading minds. When she'd tried to tell him that she was there and she loved him and not to leave her. She wishes she could have talked to William when she had the chance. She closes her eyes, leaning into Mulder, and thinks, _Jackson, this is Scully. We're here, we need your help._

Underneath Lucy’s protests of, “Hey, what the hell is going on?”, Scully feels the chamber they're in start to shift around them. She grips on tightly to Mulder, not wanting to lose him in the transfer, and he grips her tightly back. She opens her eyes as the shadow-room around then becomes the room she was in a few minutes ago, now lit just a little by a tiny flame. The strange sensation falls away, and she and Mulder fall, too, hitting the floor hard a few feet away from Lucy and Danny.

“Shit,” says Jackson, standing a few feet away with a strange look on his face and the flame in his hand. He's shaking, but he stands his ground. “How the hell did I do that.”

Scully hears a rabid hissing and turns to see the shape in the corner, the shape turning and advancing on Lucy and Danny, and she fumbles for her gun before she remembers that she doesn't have it. Lucy is shrieking as the monster gets closer, and Scully tries to get to her feet.

There is a whoosh of air, and the shadow demon gets pushed back into the corner with a considerable amount of force. She turns and sees Jackson with his hand extended, arm trembling but holding the monster in place. “You need to go,” he says. “Now.”

“We're not leaving you, kid,” Mulder says, voice wavering.

“Go!” Jackson shouts, all teenage exasperation, trembling from the effort. “I can't hold it much longer. I have a plan. Get Danny and Lucy out of here.”

His hand with the flame is extended, next to the hand he is using to pin the demon to the wall, and Scully suddenly recognizes the flame for what it is: a lighter. “Let's go, Mulder,” she says, moving to where Lucy and Danny are huddled on the floor. Mulder is already there, helping Danny off of the floor; she loops Lucy’s arm around her shoulders and hoists her up. They move outside of the room, where Lucy stumbles away from Scully with irritation and goes to Danny’s side. Mulder leaves Danny with her and comes with Scully to the door to watch Jackson.

He is pulling a water bottle filled with dark liquid out of his jacket, flicking off the lighter and moving closer to the demon. The demon is growling and struggling in place. Jackson unscrews the water bottle, and Scully recognizes the cloying scent. “What the fuck is that kid doing,” Mulder hisses.

Jackson is trembling with the effort of keeping the demon still, but he manages to put the lighter away and spray his Dasani of gasoline all over the monster. It hisses wildly, angrily. “Jackson, you're gonna have to get out of there, fast!” Scully shouts.

Jackson ignites the lighter, holds it over the demon. “Run!” Mulder shouts, pounding the door frame with one hand.

He drops the lighter and spins on his heel, runs as the demon ignites in flame. It roars in pain, and the room shakes, the walls shifting. Scully reaches for him and yanks him out of the room by his arm. “We need to go,” she says breathlessly.

The fire is spreading as the demon shrieks and runs around the room, smoke choking the tiny space. Jackson slams the door behind them before leading them towards the nearby exit. Smoke chokes the hallways as they exit, Lucy and Danny with their arms around each other's waists, Mulder and Scully huddling near Jackson. Scully puts a hand on the kid's shoulder and covers her mouth and nose with her free hand. Mulder puts his hand in hers and squeezes. It is getting harder and harder to see. Scully breathes a sigh of relief when they hit the outside, fresh air.

Carnival goers and employees mingle around outside; their eyes widen when they see the ragged group of people outside the haunted house. “Call an ambulance!” Mulder shouts.

Lucy and Danny collapse at a nearby picnic table and Jackson comes over to hug them in relief. Lucy doesn't seem too thrilled about that--she must still be mad at him--but Danny accepts his friend's hug gratefully. “Dude,” he says, sounded exhausted but no less impressed. “That was _badass_.”

Jackson laughs, thumping him on the back. “Thanks, man. I'm glad you're okay.”

Scully turns to hug Mulder briefly but gratefully. They both smell like ashes and gunpowder, but she is glad they're all okay. She's glad the kid is okay.

Sirens start up in the distance, close to the entrance of the park. “Oh, I should… probably go explain things,” Jackson says to Danny and Lucy. “Will you guys be okay?”

Lucy says nothing, but Danny nods, taking her hand. “We'll be fine.”

“Okay. I'll send a paramedic over here,” Jackson says, standing and coming towards the sirens.

“We'll come, too,” says Scully, stepping away from Mulder. “We can help fill in the gaps.”

“Oh, yeah.” Jackson looks awkwardly at the ground, but there is the hint of a smile at the edges of his mouth. “Thank you guys for, um… for saving my life.”

Mulder is smiling a little, too. “Thank you for saving ours.”

Jackson nods, looking up and meeting their eyes. “I'm sorry I lied before,” he says. “You guys are really cool.” He turns and walks towards the sirens. They follow behind him.

“Mulder,” Scully says. They are both watching Jackson, she realizes, as he walks a few feet in front of them. “I, uh, I had a few thoughts on this… this search for William.”

Before they can say anything, they hear a loudly bellowed, “William Jackson Van de Kamp!” Seconds later, Jackson's mother appears, throwing her arms around her son.

“Scully,” Mulder says quietly, watching Jackson suffocated in his mother's embrace. “I don't think we need to look for William anymore.”

“I know,” she whispers, taking his hand. Jackson's bright blue eyes glint in the light of the spreading fire behind them and she rests her head on his shoulder. “I know.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic was a long wip that changed premise at least 4 times and actually managed to get finished despite me starting it 27 days later than i would’ve liked. @firstofoctober sent me the excellent prompt “creepy halloween carnival/fair - mulder & scully, william”, and i finally, finally found something i wanted to do and ran with it. having written it entirely between college visits, installments of stranger things, and at 5 am, chunks of writing can be attested to this
> 
> \- danny was straight up named after the kid in the shining; i bought a copy at a university book store the day i started writing it
> 
> \- any parallels to stranger things or other various horror movies i probably channeled are unintentional.the demon was always a demon who moved through shadows (thought up pre-st s2), but i didn’t name it “shadow demon” until post st s2, and didn’t figure out the parallels to shadow monster/shadow demon until i’d already posted prt 1. headdesk. 
> 
> \- sources for most of my s11 spec are linked on my tumblr post of this fic: https://how-i-met-your-mulder.tumblr.com/post/166998973683/shadow-demon-part-two-october-31-2017. i mostly centered this story around the two major s11 theories i've had: that mulder and scully will be on the run looking for william all season, and that they’ll meet william(/jackson??) on a case and have no idea it’s him
> 
> \- that being said, i don’t love calling william jackson, and you better believe it was hard for me. (one time, i straight up typed william instead of jackson, in the scene where mulder is talking to the vdks on the phone.) i mostly wanted to do it to a) try and get used to the william’s name is jackson now theory (news???) and b) to help conceal william’s identity from m&s longer, bc i thought they’d figure it out sooner if they were hanging with a kid who reminds them a lot of them, and oh, hey, his name happens to be william...
> 
> \- that also being said, the clown in this fic is dedicated to it, s7 of ahs, the potential murder clown i saw outside my mom’s house, and my friend jack’s (short for jackson, go figure) haunted trail, which really did feauture the white room with strobe lights and clowns invading your personal space that jackson/william talks about in the book. go figure


End file.
